Rabbi Marc D. Rudolph

Theologian Judith Plaskow writes that it is inaccurate to understand the first verse of the Shema – that God is One – as a statement of numeric specificity.  Rather, she says, monotheism is about the capacity to glimpse the ONE in and through the changing form of the many, to see the whole in and through its infinite images [and manifestations].  “Hear O Israel” – despite the fractured, scattered, and conflicted nature of our experience, there is a unity that embraces and contains our diversity and connects all things to each other.